Last season, the Detroit Lions won 8 games by coming from behind in the 4th quarter, an NFL record. They only won one game last season in which they did not have to fight back with their backs to the wall. Their 9-7 record was enough to get them into the playoffs.
Now, this was obviously something historic. The team got into the playoffs. And the fans of the team could be proud of what the team did. Nevertheless, if you are a fan of the team, wouldn't you like it if they didn't have to play with their backs to the wall so often? As I said, they only won one game without a comeback. They also limped their way into the playoffs and failed to do anything once they got there. You can blame it on Matthew Stafford, the starting quarterback, suffering a minor injury, but they still only got that far. It is great that they are capable of coming back like they did, it shows resilience, but it is less stressful on them and their fans if they had more games where they led from start to finish and just dominated. You don't get bonus points for all these comeback wins.
Bring this back to pro wrestling. Those Detroit Lions of the previous NFL season remind me of someone. Mickie James. From the time she debuted in the WWE on the main roster in 2005, she has never been pushed as a true star. During her first run, they gave her jobber and filler pushes. Even after she got over, she got this career of inconsistency, mediocrity, and just being used to serve various purposes and tossed aside. She went to TNA, where they do not know how to properly create stars. They pushed her with a serious face character that held back her potential. She soon got lost in the shuffle. She then had a short heel turn that looked good, but she left the company. I would say she finally got featured the way I had hoped when she returned to TNA for a few months, even though that featured the train angle that everyone hated. And now she's back in the WWE. Even though she is being featured regularly and allowed to do certain things she was not allowed to do in her first run, they are still mistreating her character and making her look terrible.
For a decade, Mickie James has been able to thrive without the treatment that a Trish Stratus or a Lita has had. She became the most over diva in the WWE and was able to maintain a solid connection with the fans in TNA. People cared about what Mickie James was doing. To me, this is like what the Detroit Lions had to do for much of last season. They had to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on multiple occasions. Mickie James had to snatch success from the jaws of mediocrity.
Of course, luck, or whatever you want to call it, runs out. For the Detroit Lions, it very well might have been their quarterback getting injured. Overall, you should just not want to be in this position. What about Mickie James? She is not as over as she used to be. To be fair, none of the individual women there today are knocking it out of the park. But what is the issue with Mickie James? It is obviously not an injury. She is as solid in the ring as she has ever been. There are some nights where she looks hotter than the other women she is working with, despite being older than them. And you can still see her charisma shine at times. She's still got it. She has all the tools to still be an A+ player. The problem is that she is still in the same position she has always been in, just a different variation. She is still not getting the treatment someone like Trish Stratus or Lita got. She is not the same kind of credible jobber she was a decade ago, but the WWE is still booking her poorly and giving her a bad character. While TNA gave her a dull face character that only cared about chasing titles and getting revenge against those that tried to screw her, the WWE has given her a boring heel character that only cares about talking about how great she is and has not been backing it up properly with wins and momentum. And her character has been in limbo for the last month. Did she turn face when she turned on Alexa Bliss? Did she come over to Raw as a face? The inconsistency in which they are presenting her character combines with the lack of booking support to just put her in an extremely terrible position.
As a Mickie James fan, I can appreciate what she has had to overcome to succeed in her career. How many fans even realize it? But I am sure Mickie James fans would rather she not have to be in this position. I know I wouldn't. I would rather she finally gets featured as something great or unique, like Trish Stratus and Lita were. All she is doing is talking about it, but the treatment from the WWE obviously does not support it. When does Mickie James stop performing with her back to the wall and have to put in more work to get fans to care about her than the WWE is doing to genuinely and properly help her to succeed? Because this is the situation where it looks like she can't overcome. And it isn't fair to always expect her to. It's like thinking a sports team can always overcome any adversity. It just isn't a fair expectation.
What makes it worse is that she gets no recognition for what she has had to overcome to succeed. As I said, the Detroit Lions made history and everyone in the football world knows it. It will be brought up for years and years to come. As I also said, they don't get bonus points for this. Pro wrestling is a funny thing. Things like this actually do give you bonus points. It's all about overness. In a lot of situations, that includes the hype surrounding you and how well your character is featured. It helps you to get over. You look at little kids loving John Cena or Bayley. If their characters weren't presented like they were, would kids still feel as strongly? With Mickie James, what would it do for her character if she was acknowledged as someone that was on the wrong side of the status quo and overcame that to get the job done better than those chosen to succeed? What did it do for CM Punk to let him drop a certain memorable promo a couple years ago? It made him a wrestling god. What about Daniel Bryan beating the status quo? You can even bring up Zack Ryder. In all these cases, you have men that will at least be talked about for years when discussing guys that were not seen as good enough that proved the WWE wrong. In the case of Mickie James, she will only be talked about as a woman that screwed herself due to her weight, backstage attitude, and whatever else. Obviously, she does deserve to be in the same discussion as CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and Zack Ryder. And if she ever was acknowledged for what she had to overcome, it will improve her respectability and make it very hard to deny her that better career she deserves. She's already a lock for the WWE Hall of Fame. With their standards these days, there is no denying that. But I would have liked to have seen her get featured as a genuine A-tier star before she does retire. Stop playing with your back to the wall. Be that team that dominates, not that team that has to always try to come from behind.
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